The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on infectious diseases epidemiology: The experience of a tertiary Italian Pediatric Emergency Department.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to describe the rate and types of community-acquired respiratory infections observed in a pediatric ED during the SARS-CoV-2 related lockdown in Italy and to compare data with the same period of previous year.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of medical charts of patients arrived at the ED of Gaslini Children's Hospital from 10th March 2020 to 30th April 2019 and the same frame of 2020 were performed. We compared two groups by demographics, duration of fever before ED admission, triage code, number of patients hospitalized after ED evaluation.